Tudor Red Ranger Discussion; Authentic, or Not....

[M4tt]

Good morning Gentlemen,

I'm looking for knowledge here. I have already posted this in the WUS Rolex forum but Aiko suggested I should also post here.

Yesterday, I received a rather nice looking Tudor Ranger. I couldn't put my finger on it, but the watch made me uneasy. Shortly after posting the post below, Strela, one of the WUS mods confirmed that the watch was a Franken but didn't really go into very much detail as to why.

It is probably easier if I just post the body of my original post:

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This is my first Tudor and my third and a half offering from the Rolex stable. Initially I slapped it onto my idea of an appropriate strap and enjoyed.



Taking a couple of quick 'archive' pictures with the hands out of the way:



and naturally a couple of pictures of the movement, a ETA 2784 from back when some ETA would autowind with a discrete zip rather than the death rattle of a Russian tractor as they do today.



I guess the word is 'appropriately aged' is appropriate but it's doing everything smoothly enough, has a good strong tick and hasn't dropped a second in a couple of hours (even if the regulation hints at service time...)

So, on paper everything looks fine: the 37mm case proclaims that the watch is a 90800 with the serial 821xxx which as far as I can ascertain is appropriate for the movement. The tritium is nicely aged and in good condition on both the dial and hands and the case is, frankly not far off NOS with only a few dings, scratches and opening marks.

However, and it's a fairly hazy however, I feel uneasy. I'm not bad with old Omega and like to think I have a reasonable intuition there
but the fact is, I'm not much of a Rolex expert: I have a nice 80's Airking, a 60's Oyster Royal (and the half...). However, this isn't really enough to start to grasp why I feel uneasy.

My unease has certainly been made worse by my google research. Apparently the 'Red Ranger' is a common fake. However, to fake the right movement and even yellowed tritum wear is, well, taking it a bit further than the usual. FOr a rare Sub I can see it, for a Tudor that seems to come in at less than $1500 at present it seems like a lot of effort.

Anyway, the point is that you are the experts, so here is all the detail you could ever want to allow you to put me out of my misery:

The other half of the movement:



The caseback:



The caseback front:



Crownside:



non crown side:



Twixt the lugs, model number:



Twixt the lugs, serial number:



Now, going through all this there is absolutely nothing that, to me, obviously says fake, franken or redial. The case does appear to be in impressive condition, but little better than my Royal which is very genuine indeed. However, I still feel uneasy.

So, can someone, put me out of my misery either way?

Cheers.
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Having slept upon it, I wrote a second post:
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Okay, I have slept on it and I have a problem.

As far as I am concerned, Strela is an authority to be trusted. As such the issue is not whether the watch is a franken or not, the question is what evidence I have to lay before the seller when I ask for my money back.

Right now I haven't got much. The movement is definitely authentic and, as far as I can see, appropriate to the numbers on the case. Even when examining it with a 10x loupe it certainty still looks good.

It would appear that, at least, 34mm 'Red Rangers' existed as there is one here:

http://forums.watchuseek.com/showthread.php?t=92527

Which apparently has Rolex paperwork authenticating it.

Apart from the differences one would expect between the 37mm case and the 34mm one, the only significant difference seems to be the lume: the real one has thinner numbers made of solid lume. However, mine has identical thin lume numbers inside the thicker printed numbers:



So, having slept on it I think I have formulated why I was initially uneasy:

1) The disparity between the movement and the case, however, I have seen this before in watches I know to be genuine - 316l is simply less reactive than brass and nickel.

2) compared to, say, my Smiths W10, the dial doesn't feel 'matte' enough (while it feels too modern, I have also seen similar looking old watches)

(3) I'm not comfortable with the way that the numbers have the lume inside them rather than being all lume (which was certainly the approach with the Explorer) However, I have seen it done this way before as an effective solution to the lume bleeding problem.

However, also having slep upon it, I do really like the watch. To me it feels as right as it does wrong. The caseback screws in and out beautifully smoothly as does the crown. More to the point, there appears to be evidence of a disintegrated rubber gasket in the back. Apart from Strela's authority, which is good for me, this would not be not quite as open and shut as you might expect.

Frankly, if I didn't have Strela's authoritative word on this I would be starting to relax about the authenticity. I have played with a couple of Alphas and Seagulls and so I know where the Chinese are with 'homages' and this feels far better than they do. I know that anything can be faked but the amount of engineering, information and care that has gone into this is frankly astonishing for a 'cheaper' watch. If this was a Sub or an Explorer It would make more sense but there can't be much profit in this.

However,

Right now, I need to put together an e-mail to the seller explaining precisely why I think his watch is fake and, while I am convinced by Strela, I'm not sure he will be. So, I'm going into 'Devil's Advocate Mode'. Come on guys , give me the evidence to convince me (and the seller) that this is a fake...

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So that's the original posts, While there was some response commiserating, there has been little, beyond Strela's authoritative statement, that told me precisely why it was a fake. There are two reasons why I would really like to know far more. One is simply for my own and other's education. The other is that I am going to have to give good reasons for thinking that this is a fake when I attempt to return it. As you can imagine, there is a non trivial amount of money involved here.

So, can anyone help?